CONSULAR BOMB RAISES CONCERNS

MEXICO CITY-An attack over the weekend on the U.S. consulate in Nuevo
Laredo, Mexico, the second against U.S. government employees on the
Mexican border in less than a month, highlights the mounting safety
risks to U.S. outposts in the area from drug violence.

Late Friday evening, unknown attackers threw a bomb onto the patio of
the Nuevo Laredo consulate. The blast shattered windows, but occurred
after hours and injured no one, the consulate said. Mexican
authorities are investigating.

The bomb came less than a month after a grisly attack on people
associated with the Ciudad Juarez consulate, which left three people
dead. On March 12, hit men chased a pregnant consulate employee and
her husband, along with a third man in a separate car, through city
streets in broad daylight, gunning them all down. Mexican authorities
say an El Paso drug gang was involved in the killings.

A connection between the two attacks appears unlikely given the
regions are controlled by different drug organizations. Still, the
events underscore an emerging truth in the Mexican drug war: Despite
the fact that the U.S. government outposts are officially uninvolved
in the fighting, the diplomatic employees are being drawn into the
storm. "We've seen an increase in this type of violence in Nuevo
Laredo this year, and that's true of all the consulates along the
border, including Monterrey," said Brian Quigley, a State Department
consular spokesman. He said both the Nuevo Laredo and nearby Piedras
Negras consular agency would remain closed until "we have adequate
security to keep our visitors and staff safe."

This isn't the first attack. In October 2008, two men fired a gun and
threw a grenade at the U.S. consulate in Monterrey, Mexico's northern
business capital. The grenade didn't explode. Nuevo Laredo's
consulate was closed for several days in 2005 by then-U.S. Ambassador
Tony Garza following a gun battle between warring gangs close to the
consulate. The U.S.-Mexico border once stood out as a relatively
peaceful assignment in the U.S. Foreign Service. Relations between
the countries were friendly and cross-border business boomed.
Employees could maintain a house on the other side of the border or
visit relatives there.

The U.S. has built a string of well-staffed embassy outposts in the
region including Ciudad Juarez, the largest American consulate in the
world with 300 employees. Others along the border include consulates
in Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros, Tijuana and Nogales, along with smaller
consular agencies in Ciudad Acuna, Piedras Negras and Reynosa. But
the situation has been changing the past few years.

In 2006, Mexican President Felipe Calderon decided to crush the
powerful drug organizations by deploying military and federal police
throughout the country. Four years later, the most notable result
appears to have been an increase in violence: Nearly 18,000 have been
killed in fighting since 2006. Mexicans have been a target of most of
the violence. This weekend, video emerged of gunmen mowing down eight
people, including a 14-year-old girl, in the northern town of Creel
last month; on Sunday, the body of a Mexican journalist was found in
the central state of Michoacan with his throat slit. The family of
Enrique Villicana Palomares, a columnist for the daily newspaper The
Voice, reported him missing last week. Both cases are being
investigated for drug connections.

Mexican security forces are responsible for protecting U.S.
diplomatic missions in the country, a task some say they may not be
up to. "They haven't taken it seriously," says Alberto Islas, private
security consultant in Mexico City, of Mexico's federal and local
police. Mexican police in Nuevo Laredo didn't immediately respond to
a call for comment. Mr. Quigley, the consular spokesman said there
was an "excellent working relationship" with Mexican authorities.

Still, Mr. Islas says, U.S. efforts to beef up security in its
facilities-with perimeter fences, for example-haven't been matched by
their Mexican counterparts, like limiting traffic next to consulates
to pedestrians.

Mr. Quigley, the consular spokesman, says consulates constantly
conduct their own reviews of security. "I would say we've taken the
appropriate security measures based on the incidents that have
happened," he says. Authorities are still probing what happened
Friday. F.B.I agents and officials from the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were in Nuevo Laredo to investigate
this weekend, the consulate said. A surveillance tape may offer clues
to what happened Friday, and has been turned over to Mexican
authorities performing their own inquiry.